Victory for Tyler opens tomorrow

Libby and I were up at Crane Arts last night after hearing the AMAZING William Kentridge lecture. (Libby told you about it) It was Second Thursday and the Crane had openings at Nexus, 201 Gallery and inLiquid. Nearby, Tower Gallery celebrated the opening of its first big group exhibit, an outstanding figurative show. Second Thursdays seem to be working well — all venues were hopping when we got there, and we observed a serious number of Vox Populi members showing support, something they couldn’t do before when everybody had First Friday openings at the same time.

Meanwhile, also at the Crane, in the Icebox Project Space, is the Victory for Tyler exhibit, a benefit show for Tyler School of Art’s exhibitions and public programs. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but presumably some part of the money from sale of works goes to Tyler. The show devoted to painting was juried by ICA’s Jenelle Porter. There are many names in the show whose works are known and loved by us here at artblog. See you up there.

Gallery Hours
Wednesday – Sunday
12:00 – 6:00 p.m.
[Ed. note: Be forwarned. The police are ticketing cars parked in the median strip on American Street. They say the median is a “moving” lane (like a passing lane) and it’s bordered by two solid yellow lines which means no parking. Many folks got tickets last night. Do not park in the middle of American Street.]

On another note–the parking issue is nothing short of stupid Philadelphia priorities–as in how is it we need to move officers from desk jobs to evening hours on the street, yet we can deploy four (I counted them, four) policemen to ticket cars parked where they were bothering no one, in what they informed us was a “running lane?” People are getting shot in record numbers, the cars were not blocking traffic, the neighborhood is industrial and therefore not used except for the visitors to the galleries at that hour, what the hell?

Parking in a median strip like this is sop on South Broad Street, where an attempt to ticket cars there a few years ago led to enough of a fuss that the police buckled to community pressure.

Let those four policemen go protect citizens from crazy armed shooters, for gods sake, and leave all those dangerous art lovers alone. If the police are stuck on the rules, change the designation of that median strip from a running lane to a parking lane and be done with it. It would certainly be a better use of the real estate.

I think these particular officers should have to watch the episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Barney is left in charge so Andy can go to Mt. Pilot on police business. Barney ends up locking up the entire town for legitimate violations but Andy quickly shows him that it is not the letter of the law that is important, it’s the spirit of it. Luckily 105 people did not get shot in Mayberry during this episode unlike what’s happening around here.Are they going to start ticketing the other officers that park in the median at Broad and Spring Garden near the police hall? Seems like that disturbs traffic more than some people outside the Crane Building.This is all to say thank you for the warning. Guess I need to dust off my bike to go see the Victory show.

All I can think is some scrooge complained, although why is beyond me. Yesterday I stopped at Crane again briefly to take some pictures and there were cars parked in the median in the middle of the day. Now, in the middle of the day, there is slightly more traffic, but still not enough to be affected by the cars in the middle. It’s just another way the city shoots itself in the foot and discourages business (after all, art openings are business).